BigQuery vs ClickHouse
BigQuery
Google Cloud's serverless data warehouse and the default landing zone for GA4's raw event export.
Full directory entry →ClickHouse
An open-source columnar OLAP database built for sub-second analytical queries over billions of event rows.
Full directory entry →Facts, side by side
| BigQuery | ClickHouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Pricing notes | Free tier includes 1 TiB of queries and 10 GiB of storage per month; on-demand queries bill $6.25 per TiB scanned, with capacity (slot-hour) pricing via BigQuery editions (Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus) for steady workloads, including autoscaling and discounted 1- and 3-year commitments. | The open-source server is free to self-host. ClickHouse Cloud is usage-based with compute and storage billed separately: compute is metered per-minute in 8 GB RAM increments, storage on the compressed size of stored data. Basic tier starts around $66/mo and Scale around $499/mo (AWS us-east-1), with a 30-day trial on credits. |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes — Apache 2.0 licensed; single binary to a large cluster, plus the managed ClickHouse Cloud. |
| Categories | Warehouse | Warehouse |
| Who it's for | data engineers, implementation engineers, measurement managers | data engineers, implementation engineers |
| Integrations listed | 6 | 5 |
Directory entries last updated: BigQuery 2026-07-18 · ClickHouse 2026-07-18.
In brief
BigQuery — Google Cloud's serverless data warehouse and the default landing zone for GA4's raw event export. Pricing: freemium. Free tier includes 1 TiB of queries and 10 GiB of storage per month; on-demand queries bill $6.25 per TiB scanned, with capacity (slot-hour) pricing via BigQuery editions (Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus) for steady workloads, including autoscaling and discounted 1- and 3-year commitments. Self-hosting: No. Listed integrations: google-analytics-4, dbt, airflow, dagster, hightouch, census.
ClickHouse — An open-source columnar OLAP database built for sub-second analytical queries over billions of event rows. Pricing: freemium. The open-source server is free to self-host. ClickHouse Cloud is usage-based with compute and storage billed separately: compute is metered per-minute in 8 GB RAM increments, storage on the compressed size of stored data. Basic tier starts around $66/mo and Scale around $499/mo (AWS us-east-1), with a 30-day trial on credits. Self-hosting: Yes — Apache 2.0 licensed; single binary to a large cluster, plus the managed ClickHouse Cloud.. Listed integrations: dbt, airflow, dagster, rudderstack, segment.
Which one, when
Derived mechanically from the structured facts above — deltas only, not an editorial verdict. Where the facts tie, read both entries.
- its entry lists measurement managers in "who it's for"; ClickHouse's does not
- you want an open-source codebase — BigQuery is not open source
- you need to self-host — ClickHouse supports it and BigQuery does not
Also compare
BIGQUERY VS: Snowflake
CLICKHOUSE VS: Snowflake